The Street > The Lounge
Paris
Narcoleptic Insomniac:
That Atlantic article was a great read.
How should we understand the Paris attacks within the context of the article?
If the immediate goal of ISIS is to expand the caliphate's borders and its ultimate goal is to trigger the countdown to judgment day then I see the point of the attacks being to provoke and compel the west to send ground troops to Syria so they can have their prophetic battle at Dabiq.
Edit: that tank woman is doing it for me.
Prodigal Son:
I don't expect violence to stop. How do you make ideas susceptible to bullets?
Narcoleptic Insomniac:
You can't.
But anyway, the idea is that if the west sends troops and IS get their asses kicked into oblivion at Dabiq it'd be a huge blow to their ideological platform because the prophecy would obviously not be realized. On the downside, they or others like al-Qaeda could spin it and use it as alleged proof that the west is trying to destroy all Muslims. And of course there's the recent historical precedent telling us that us invading countries ends up badly for everyone.
condrbkr:
Do you really think the majority of ISIS is a bunch of brainwashed idiots who do it to fulfill a sense of prophecy? Really? They're people too. The same people who buy into all that prophetic nonsense are the same people who join the our military to kill ragheads and get their freedom hard ons. I'm sure a lot of them are doing it cause that's who the new shot callers are and they don't want to piss off a group that isn't afraid to kill one of their own. Maybe ISIS offers a job in a land where unemployment is extremely high and the way they see it is that fuck I'm probably not gonna ever engage in a land battle so why not. The same reason we can be disgruntled with our own system is probably the same way they see theirs. The difference is that here we have an ability to have discourse without believing that our heads are gonna get cut off.
There is this customer at work we call Saddam cause he has an uncanny resemblance to Saddam Hussein. He says he used to be a district chief to the police force involved with Taliban-era Afghanistan. He doesn't seem like the guy that buys ideological nonsense saying that he's both an alcoholic and gambler(which is heavily looked down upon in Muslim culture) but when he brought up his former of line of work, he talks like all that was just an opportunity to advance his own family. He's still an asshole though cause he blames everyone for his inability to ever win scratch offs and his drinking and driving and constantly pissing in the parking lot, and being a pompous douche in general. The reason I bring it up, he's for the most part a regular guy and I imagine there are a lot more like him than religious zealots hellbent on bring an apocalyptical end.
JFax:
--- Quote from: cmc4130 link=topic=221287.msg3719375#msg3719375 ---Huffinton article
--- End quote ---
Very good read, thank you for the link
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